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A mommy that's a tomboy

Exercise After Pregancy- It Ain’t Easy

I’m free! As of Monday I was released for full activity after having had a c-section 6 weeks ago. This blog is titled, The Tomboy Mommy, so the fact that I get to be a tomboy again is so exciting. I wasted no time and headed back to the dojo Monday night where I train mixed martial arts. It was wonderful and splendid and horrible. Here’s why:

1. I have no core control due to the 9 months of pregnancy and at the end of that time, my abs were cut in half. Doing crunches during the group warm-up and conditioning portion of class made me look like a rolly polly that can neither rolly nor polly.

2. My boobs hurt because I’m breast feeding, so if you even look at them aggressively they cry. This makes using your chest to smash and be smashed feel like your breasts are being tenderized like hamburger meat. I can’t tap out when I’m making the offensive move, but damn it hurts more than the person I’m submitting. They make sports bras with cups in them, like a cup for my chesticles. I considered how awkward it might be to be smashing some guys face with my plastic molded boobs, but then I remembered how many times their cups smash my face. Seriously, I’ve almost gotten a black eye from a dude’s cup.

3. I farted while rolling (because my body does what it wants these days). Passing gas while performing jiu jitsu maneuvers is common among the sport’s practitioners. I have never expelled gas audibly from my body while rolling, though many of my male training partners have. There are three ways to react to this bodily function. The first is, if you know your partner well, make a joke and continue on. Second, you can say sorry and continue on. Or third (and the most practiced reaction), is to just continue on- which was the option I chose especially since the person with whom I was rolling was brand new.

4. My milk let down several times but thankfully I had prepared for such an occurrence. It also helps that when you’re soaked in your own and others sweat, you can’t tell if you have leaky nipples. I debated whether to wear the nursing pads in my sports bras because having one fall out while training would be mortifying.

5. To make it all worth while though, there are a couple of strapping young men who had to walk away reconciling that not only were they beaten by a girl, that girl just had a baby. Boom!

Getting back into an exercise routine post-partum is hard enough as it is. If you’re diving back into a fitness regimen, things bounce and jiggle that neither bounced nor jiggled before. Things chafe and rub that didn’t do so before. You’re knees hurt from the extra weight you’re carrying and from your gate changing from the adaption to accommodate your pregnancy waddle. Oh, and no matter how fit you were before and no matter how active you stayed, your body hates you right now. Ok, let’s not make it personal. You’re body doesn’t actually hate you. Let’s say your body is having an identity crisis and does not know who it is. So, it’s not you, it’s them. You will have a dysfunctional relationship with your body for a little bit. This can make it difficult to really gain momentum in sticking with a fitness routine, but believe me, your body will thank you eventually. You can sincerely look your body in the eye and say, this hurts me more than it hurts you, and it might actually be true (unlike when we say it to our kids).